Amazing Stories Volume 180

By Stephen Bartholomew

Amazing Stories Volume 180 is a great collection of action short stories from "The Golden Age of Science Fiction". Featured here are six short stories by different authors: "Far Enough To Touch" by Stephen Bartholomew, "The Fastest Draw" by Larry Eisenberg, "Cully" by Jack Egan, "World Edge" by Jack Egan, "The Yes Men Of Venus" by Ron Goulart and "Little Men Of Space" by Frank Belknap Long.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Otbebookpublishing
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9783989732117

Stephen Bartholomew

He spent three years in the US Army where he learned a lot of vital skills, such as how to use a soldering iron and screwdriver, as well as how to make the bed, mop the floor, and wash dishes. He grew up and spent most of his life in San Francisco. After obtaining a useless liberal arts degree, he became a social worker and did more than 20 years in the mean streets of New York City, San Francisco, and rural California. He is now devoted to writing books. He has written some science fiction and fantasy, but is now mainly interested in tales of the Old West.

Book preview

Content

Far Enough to Touch

Little Men Of Space

The Yes Men Of Venus

World Edge

The Fastest Draw

Cully

Far enough to touch

Stephen Bartholomew

Rene Duport was the quiet member of the moonship's

crew. So quiet that it took several minutes before

anyone noticed that he jumped overboard—into space.

The ship had a crew of six, and Rene Duport was the youngest. The pilot, who held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and Master Pilot in the United Nations Space Corps, was one of the two Americans aboard. The co-pilot was Russian, the navigator a Finn, the engineer an African, and the research observer was the other American. Rene Duport was a Belgian, and he was the radioman, and the youngest ever to go to the Moon.

It had been a routine flight since the ship had lifted from the lunar surface. In a little less than six hours they were due to enter parking orbit. Twelve hours later, with a minimum of luck, the ferry ship would dive to its landing area near the Marianas, and the six crew members would be once again on Ground. Rather, they would be floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but that was far more solid than space. All the Earth was sacred Ground to them, including the sea. Each of them anticipated the moment when they would scoop salt water up in their hands and fling their oxygen masks into the depths and raise their faces to the burning ocean sun, yet they tried not to think of the moment, they kept it in the backs of their minds, as if thinking of it consciously could bring bad luck.

All except Rene Duport, who was nineteen years old, and the youngest ever to enter space. He had loved it out there, on the Moon, and he loved being here in the ship. He wanted to go back out again, and he was the only one of the six who was reluctant to return to Ground. Perhaps if the spacemedics had known of this unnatural—almost inhuman—state of Rene Duport's mind, they would never have let him go out. Then again, perhaps he was one of a new breed of men, born under new signs in the Zodiac, the signs of Gagarin and Glenn, equipped with a kind of mind and soul never known before. He was the only one of the six who did not want to go Home.

The American pilot turned to mutter something to his Russian co-pilot, seated next to him at the front of the ship. The Russian nodded and adjusted a dial. By formal agreement the crew spoke in French between themselves. But the pilot's accent was bad, and Duport would have preferred to talk to him in English. He could not help smiling to himself whenever the American said something. Frowning, Duport moved his headphone slightly and changed the frequency of his receiver. The Azores tracking station had begun to fade with the rotation of the Earth, but he had no trouble picking up Hawaii. He wrote down the latest fix and passed the slip of paper forward to the navigator. He switched on his transmitter to give Hawaii an acknowledgement.

Forward, the American pilot heard Duport speaking to Hawaii. This is the moonship Prospero acknowledging transmission.... The American pilot did not like using French either. He would have preferred speaking English or Russian. There was something poetic about French. The phrase bateau du lune, moonship, always gave him a quiver. It made him think of some kind of ghost ship, with a moss-covered hull and gossamer sails, floating silently in a midnight sky. There was something—fragile about the language, especially as Duport spoke it in his smooth, pure accents.

The American glanced into a mirror that gave him a view of the cabin behind him. Duport sat by himself at the extreme rear of the cabin, the radio console hiding most of his body. The headphones and mike covered most of his face, so that only his nose and eyes were visible. His eyes were light blue and seemed to glisten, unnaturally bright, as if the boy had been taking some kind of drug. He was only nineteen years old. The pilot had had misgivings about Duport from the beginning when the crew was first formed. It wasn't only his youth, he didn't quite know what it was. There was something about Duport, something deep in his personality that he did not trust. But he did not know how to name it.

Still, Duport had functioned all right so far. And the Selection Board should know its business. The crew had been chosen, as usual, by competitive examination, and if there was any flaw in Duport's character it would have turned up sometime during the six-month training period. Probably Duport was as good as any of them. He had been a child prodigy, he'd taken his Master's in physics at the age of seventeen. He knew as much as any of them, and he had made no mistakes so far.

Still, the American remembered the first time he had seen Duport. It had been right after the Selection Board published the crew list. Out of the two hundred who finished the training program, the Board had given Duport highest rating. He was not only the youngest ever to enter space, he was the only crew-member of the Prospero who had never been in space before, except of course for the ballistic shoots which were part of training. The American himself had been aboard the Quixote on the first moonshot directed by the U.N. Space Corps. Then they had built the Prospero, and he had piloted it on its shakedown cruise in orbit. And the Board had chosen him to fly the ship on its first trip to the Moon. Altogether, it was the fourth shot of the U.N. Space Corps, and the second time he had been on the Moon. He, the American, was the veteran, he had spent more hours in space than any other human being alive.

And he remembered the first time he had seen Duport. The veteran and the kid. He had met him in the briefing room at the launching site at Christmas Island. The veteran had been studying a thrust table, and the kid had come into the room, half an hour early for the first briefing. The American did not hear him come in. He looked up from his desk, and there he was, Duport, standing at attention in his blue Corps uniform with the silver sunburst in his lapel, indicating active commission.

Christ! the American had burst out, forgetting himself and speaking in English. Are you Duport? They told me you were young.... He already knew each of the other crewmen.

Yes sir, Duport answered in English. I'm afraid I am rather young. Corpsman Duport reports for briefing, sir. I just arrived on the island an hour ago.

The American